Thursday, September 18, 2008

A Billion Poem

The human mindis essentially qualitative.As you know,we are easily excited bypinks and purples,triangles and circlesand we endlessly argueover true and false,right and wrong.

But quantitative analysesrarely touch our souls.

Numbers were invented mainlyby men to trick each other.I am almost certain women hadnothing to do with them. Theyhad more vital tasks, survival, for example,at hand.

But playing with big numberscould be interesting.In fact it could be really fun. Sayif I were to sit on a gravel pit andcount one billion pebbles non-stopit will take me some 14 years;or if I were to count what Africaowes to richforeigners – some 200 billiondollars,it is impossible. I will have tobe born 40 times and do nothingbut keep counting 24 hours.

Although things could be simpler on asmaller scale. Suppose as a resultof the debt, five million children dieevery year , as in fact they do,and each dying child criesa minimum of 100 times a daythere would be a trillion criesfloating aroundin the atmosphere just over aperiod of five years.Remember a sound wave oncegenerated never ceases to existin one form or the other,and never escapes the atmosphere.

Now one fine morning, even ifone of these cries suddenly hitsyou, it will shatter your soul intoa billion pieces. It will take14 years to gatherthe pieces and put them backinto one piece.

On the other hand, maybe all thetrillion cries could hit your souland nothing would happen..........................................................................